It's like a vicious circle here. This shouldn't be a shock to anyone. MOBILE WAS CALLED DEAD OVER A YEAR AGO. Does anyone here read? The future is Win10 on ARM. Whether that form factor is a <6" device or not has yet to be seen. I personally believe it will. Either way, just deal with it guys. Jesus. There will no longer be anything after Windows 10 "xxxx", we don't call the OS on a tablet Windows 10 Tablet, do we? It's not just reading between the lines, it's just plain old reading.

It's like a vicious circle here. This shouldn't be a shock to anyone. MOBILE WAS CALLED DEAD OVER A YEAR AGO. Does anyone here read? The future is Win10 on ARM. Whether that form factor is a <6" device or not has yet to be seen. I personally believe it will. Either way, just deal with it guys. Jesus. There will no longer be anything after Windows 10 "xxxx", we don't call the OS on a tablet Windows 10 Tablet, do we? It's not just reading between the lines, it's just plain old reading.

People don't want to give up their current mobile device, and that's understandable, but you are correct. We are moving in a new direction that should not be a surprise. People need to decide what works best for them. Complaining will not help.

Honestly, I'll be glad once this news becomes official. It's way overdue. Windows Phone is running as a joke in most parts of the internet/world. It's time to bury it while it still has a shred of dignity.

Once everyone has had a couple years to move on MS can take a stab at things again, after the stink of the WP era has wafted away. Maybe they'll even just converge ARM based devices into more mobile, portable ones as time goes on. It's the sort of Trojan horse method most of us are expecting anyhow.

Either way, people will need time to heal. The passion in these forums is real. People are STILL suggesting Windows Phones to friends and family. It's a mistake, well intentioned or not. With that kind of fire in the veins I don't want to see what the fallout is going to look like once this is offical. But regardless of the fans feelings the band-aid approach is the best anyone can expect at this point. Rip it off as quick as possible, let them deal with the emotional fallout, let them move on, and then try to win them back later. Provide what was promised up-front instead of dragging fans through the mud for years on end. Respect them. It's the only way Windows will find their way into mobile ever again.

I don't agree that windows 10 mobile is 'dead', changing absolutely, however there are still a fair few variables at play. There are other windows mobile phones still being released at the moment.

Windows on arm, whilst I agree that's the future, that future can't be absolute quite yet, to go all in and kill mobile outright loses all budget and mid range phones. And that wouldn't be a problem if carriers were on board but they ain't, a slower approach is wiser I think.

There are other windows mobile phones still being released at the moment.

I'm curious about this one. Phones such as?... I'm not seeing anything down anyone's pipeline. Even if you were to say HP or someone is making another device that's not really indicative of anything. Companies produce items well after the 11th hour all the time, especially third parties. People still made HD-DVD's right up until the moment it was announced it would no longer be supported. Businesses will stretch the truth as long as they can once the writing is on the wall. Not just to protect themselves (have to pull in EVERY bit of cash flow you can while the product chokes) but their partners as well.

Originally Posted by Wbutchart1

Windows on arm, whilst I agree that's the future, that future can't be absolute quite yet, to go all in and kill mobile outright loses all budget and mid range phones.

What budget? In MS's own words the revenue from mobile is negligible. They're literally not making money on WP, if not outright losing money at this point. There very likely isn't enough revenue there to justify the continued expenses and employees time on such projects. Besides, Windows Phone was never meant to be a loss leader. It was meant to be "the" leader that tied you into the MS system. With their intended leader out of the race it makes more sense to find a new one.

Yup that's some of the ones I'm aware of. In the uk, companies like bush often churn out a mid range or budget windows phone every now and then as well.

For me mobile has to remain until the transition to arm is wider. At the moment it's only top spec arm chips that will be able to do this, so, budget phones and mid range phones will be out of the question. In a year or two, mid range will likely be able to run the arm windows. Until then I think they need to at least keep mobile ticking over.

The Wileyfox thing is... eh. That's not going to leave a visible footprint anywhere and they're a virtually unknown third-party. Microsoft owes them nothing as far as a heads up goes. Plus the device is targeting business, not consumer.

Whartonbrooks attempt is already doomed. They're nowhere near the funding goal and the same thing I mentioned above applies to them minus the business part.

HP had that blip at MW2017 but it hasn't resulted in any announcement. And again it's being pushed for business, not consumer.

I understand the desire to keep the fire going but all three of those aren't even kindling. They're not even in a pipeline so far as we know. They're rumors and possibilities but they're not actual confirmed devices we're seeing. Wileyfox's device is as close as it gets and ANYTHING could happen between the supposed August announcement and Build 2017.

This is probably due to contract responsibilities/business reasons, and avoiding damaging relationships with OEMs (ahem, HP) who Microsoft relies on, on the PC side. They likely don't want a repeat of the Kin cancellation, that forever poisoned Microsoft's relationship with Verizon, and left the carrier with virtually worthless stock of feature phones that they had to take losses on.
So, there'll never be some big public announcement that they're pulling the plug on W10M, but their actions, or lack of, have been saying that very same thing for some time now.

Yup as I said a few weeks ago mobile has entered maintenance mode, the only reason we have this release 2 crap is contractual obligations, After those are fulfilled mobile 10 will be no longer developed.

What did not help was people hanging on to their 3 year old devices and not upgrading to the 950's.

Had everyone who had an old Lumia gone out and bought a 950 then the platform might be in a better state.

It's a double edge sword of sorts. With the way things rolled out of the gate in regards to W10M then the less than stellar appearance/performance of the 950/XL series, many chose to take the "wait-n-see" approach, can't say I blame them as we did that ourselves.

If you got the "creators" themselves, in this case MS, taking on a lackadaisical mentality it sure doesn't make jumping onboard very appetizing. The way I see it, MS should have continued on in the 8.1 realm until their change-of-direction/retrenchment plans had some actual weight to it. How it unfolded was at every turn, in the early stages of the game, they got back stabbed due to their perceived incompetence. Takes a long time to recoup from such bad press.

For me personally, I switch platforms as my mindset of the day dictates whilst watching things unfold (for better or worse), not everyone wants to nor can do that. IMO, the writing is on the wall with the steady streams of despair seen daily, we'll continue using our present WM devices until they work no more.

Forgot to mention... I am riding the 650 & 950 waves at this very moment just because, we can.

I hope other OEMs stand up. I'm really hoping that Samsung makes that S8 running W10M, although I know it's just a rumor. They have so much positive press right now, it would do wonders for MS if they shared a little.

I feel like its worth mentioning at this point that windows on arm is not focused initially on mobile, but on LTE enabled tablets, notebooks, hybrids and also arm based servers. MS has been pretty clear about this in their language.

For those of you expecting some kind of immediate re-boot, you may be fairly disappointed. Although I do expect china (or someone) will likely make some kind of phablet from this next year (Probs about 6.4 inches, a giant of a thing), don't expect one from MS this year. Or even next.

As for the topic of this year phones....dan has mentioned he's seen some list. He said it "contained nothing exciting", which implies no lushious high end flagships (a market that is slowing anyway, and windows is marginal, so fairly understandable). But there is a list somewhere, I expect some with some midrange devices, _maybe_ perhaps a slight revision of the 4s (rather than a new model).

The strategy for mobile is clearly to leverage other areas, and its clearly been that way for awhile, since the discussions around onecore and cshell.

We are only just this year seeing some of them fruits- windows cloud, windows on arm, scorpio, so I would not expect some truimphant return to mobile just yet. Those are products that should pay off in mindshare, marketshare and development of UWPs (which are useful on console, essential on windows cloud, and useful on windows on arm - three things that should really entice devs to UWP and UWA).

So I think people should also start adjusting to the idea, even the big manufacturers of phones will start shifting their focus to the midrange more and more. Perhaps that doesn't excite some people as much, but consider the model of companies like oppo, lenovo and xiaomi - they make some pretty quality products, high specs, with cut prices and simply save by less marketing. So with a little less fanfair, you can get some really decent gear.

Even nokia, the subject of this thread, are smart enough to go completely on the budget end on market re-entry. Likewise windows on arm, and windows cloud are not products pitched at premium markets.

Indeed even when it comes to some future surface phone, by the time it gets to that point, the premium phone market may have slumped so much that they might pitch it midrange. Unless it truly is paradigm breaking in an obvious way - because even enterprise markets are swayed by consumer when it comes to phones. Although we may still have a year or two of phone boom yet, it does look like its about to hit saturation.

It's a double edge sword of sorts. With the way things rolled out of the gate in regards to W10M then the less than stellar appearance/performance of the 950/XL series, many chose to take the "wait-n-see" approach, can't say I blame them as we did that ourselves.

If you got the "creators" themselves, in this case MS, taking on a lackadaisical mentality it sure doesn't make jumping onboard very appetizing. The way I see it, MS should have continued on in the 8.1 realm until their change-of-direction/retrenchment plans had some actual weight to it. How it unfolded was at every turn, in the early stages of the game, they got back stabbed due to their perceived incompetence. Takes a long time to recoup from such bad press.

For me personally, I switch platforms as my mindset of the day dictates whilst watching things unfold (for better or worse), not everyone wants to nor can do that. IMO, the writing is on the wall with the steady streams of despair seen daily, we'll continue using our present WM devices until they work no more.

Forgot to mention... I am riding the 650 & 950 waves at this very moment just because, we can.

Well to be fair MS has had to do some MAJOR pivot. Windows 8 attempted to bring the platform up to the age of touch, and it made too many compromises on the desktop, for the markets taste. Windows 10, is a successful endeavour, but due to needing to revise their approach more than once with mobile, it hasn't faired too well.

However the success in enterprise, desktop, and tablets has paid off for their latest pivot, software as a service, and will continue to in all likelihood. The fact that nokia basically had losses the whole way through, even when selling phones, never helped shareholders warm to the idea. Currently profits are higher than they have been. With a big year of releases ahead, I don't think many invested in MS are mourning the loss of windows mobile marketshare, so much as they are glad they have finally found some real market footing again.

It's easy to imagine a company like Microsoft, completely based in desktop/mouse based UI, completely floundering with a market shift like the rise of touch. They have done very well, and what they have done with their ongoing work to unify the platform, may pay off even more long term. Very adaptive.

For all the criticism of some - commercially, and practically they have more in terms of success with windows 10, and with their vision of innovation. I mean, they have essentially re-branded, and completely re-tooled both their OS, AND their business model. Honestly, I think that's impressive and far from incompetence.

What I would call incompetence is the handling of nokia, perhaps even the purchase of nokia. As nice as they are for consumers, if that company hadn't have lost money hand over first, and phones had been made somehow without the losses, MS may never have had to re-entrench. It was never marketshare, it was lost dollars. MS might have been better to simply get someone else to make phones for them (nokia even), rather than trying to run the company themselves. IDK?

All that goes squarely on ballmer (although I don't disrespect the man, he is the one who decided to co-develop the flexible graphene oled screen with Samsung, and I think that still may pay _huge_ dividends with FFs shift with mobile devices in five years or so, indeed it could almost redeem windows mobile on its own - with the help of win 10).

Suddenly thinking about Windows 10 on ARM. Could that well replace the Mobile? Because I have a strong feeling that it can.

I have wondered this too. My thought was OEMs will run with the W10M, as long as Microsoft plans to support it. When W10 ARM hits Microsoft like they did before will introduce new HW with it to set the bar. And rinse and repeat...

So, when will there be a massive 95% off sale of all windows phones at the Microsoft store? That's when I will go get a 950XL or the HP Elite X3!

There probably won't be one. Not right away anyways. Usually those devices get discounted by third parties if that happens. Microsoft will generally end up selling most leftover stock to a third party for a cheap bulk price and then the third party will sell the phones for a profit.

Liquidation takes time before you find a good deal, if any at all :(. Especially on the HP. They're selling to Enterprise... expect it not to happen.